'Get informed, get tested': getting the word out about hepatitis C

Steve Pollard came close to death, underwent two liver transplants, and received treatment with experimental drugs before he was clear of hepatitis C and began to get his life back. When he recovered, he vowed he would devote his life to raising awareness about the viral disease — known as the “silent killer” — with the hope of preventing others from going through what he did.

Pollard, 48, was one of the speakers at an event outside Ottawa City Hall on Tuesday to mark World Hepatitis Day.

His message: “Get informed, get tested and tell a friend or loved one to do the same. If you are not doing it for yourself, do it for them.”

Pollard, like many people eventually diagnosed with hepatitis C, had no idea he was sick until, around 2009, what he thought were flu symptoms began to wear him down. By the time he went to the doctor, his eyes were beginning to look yellow. He was diagnosed with a chronic hepatitis C infection with severe scarring of his liver.

The Ottawa man eventually underwent a liver transplant. When that failed and he was waiting for his second, he says, he “made a lot of promises to myself,” that he would raise awareness about the disease every day in some way.

Pollard’s message about awareness and testing for hepatitis C was echoed doctors, nurses, public health officials, social workers and others at Tuesday’s event in Marion Dewar Plaza.

An estimated 600,000 Canadians are infected with hepatitis B or C, the two forms of viral hepatitis, but almost half of them are unaware of their condition, according to the Canadian Society for International Health, which organized the event and others like it across Canada.

Viral hepatitis can lead to liver failure, cancer, cirrhosis, disability and death if untreated. There is a vaccine for hepatitis B, but not for hepatitis C, which can remain hidden for years until it causes serious liver damage. New drugs, now covered by the Ontario government, can easily treat and, in most cases, cure hepatitis C, but first patients have to be tested.

Dr. Curtis Cooper, director of The Ottawa Hospital and Regional Hepatitis Program, says anyone who is at risk or unsure of their status should get tested. Baby boomers are considered at risk, in part, because of the possibility of being treated with tainted blood products.

Baby boomers are five times as likely as others to have hepatitis C, something that has led the Centres for Disease Control in the U.S. to recommend screening, something, says Cooper, that Canada’s Public Health Agency has not done.

Health Minister Rona Ambrose did release a statement urging Canadians to speak to their health care providers “to learn more about hepatitis risk factors, testing and care. Stigma continues to be a major roadblock to reducing the number of new or undiagnosed infections.”

Despite the recent advent of drugs that can cure most cases of hepatitis C, awareness continues to be a problem, said Cooper.

In Ottawa, there are an estimated 15,000 people, 5,000 of whom Cooper sees at The Ottawa Hospital clinic, with hepatitis C. Many of the remainder, he said, are likely disengaged from the health system or unaware they have the disease.

While baby boomers are a focus of awareness campaigns about Hepatitis, Cooper said there is growing concern about new waves of the disease caused by growing numbers of injection drug users in parts of North America that have had high narcotic addiction rates.

In parts of the rural U.S., cases of HIV and hepatitis C have skyrocketed following surging heroin use.

Cooper said there are similar scenarios across the Prairies, and it is a real concern for hepatitis C numbers in Canada.

Safe injection sites and other harm reduction programs could moderate the danger of spreading the disease and help get drug users in touch with the medical system, he said. The federal government actively opposes Canada’s only safe injection site, in Vancouver, and has made it unlikely that any new ones will be established.

Despite those concerns, there is more hope than ever for people with hepatitis C, said Cooper, who has seen the health of patients with liver failure completely turn around after taking the new drugs available.

“These meds give almost everybody with hepatitis C treatment options.” And the two drug regimes available were developed with the help of drug trials at The Ottawa Hospital, he added.

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